WHERE oh where to start with this rant????

The unspeakable Leigh Gallagher of Fortune Magazine suggested to writer Nick Kristoff that there should be a program in the poor areas of Appalachia that discourage poor women from having chiildren in the first place, we we won't have to pay for anti-poverty programs later. How about that, Mr. Kristoff?

I would have taken off that woman's head and I am not a violent person. But Nick was nice and said that was getting into a creepy area....and, heh, don't wanna go there, um, uh...

Oh, the irony! Just moments before Joe was haranguing about how unions are unpopular because workers would take $14.50 and hour over nothing, even if they had been paid $30 an hour before.
No connection made between that story and the one on Appalachia that Nick Kristoff was discussing. I think Kristoff was desperately trying for damage control for his column the other day in the NYT, but he's beginning to find out just how appallingly contemptuous the Gallaghers of the world are towards the poor. Who's side are you on, Nick? You'd better make up your mind and do it NOW. "Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas" as my parents used to say...

And yes, I tore off an email to the Morning Joe program, sputtering with rage.

4. I am like a moth to a flame

watching Morning Joe ..when he brought up all the republican governors
we have now..I tweeted to him #outside funding!..he infuriates me..all I can think
of is that I need to get my adrenalin going in the mornings..he is a jerk and
reached one of his many levels of incompetence this morning...

9. You are exactly correct!n/t

11. Chuck Todd will never understand how important unions have been in US History....

...and how important they are starting to become now.

Corporations and business owners are determined to destroy the unions so they can pay lower wages to workers and "be more competitive in the global marketplace". They don't care that they are destroying the middle class and greatly increasing the number of people who live at or below the poverty level.

At the same time, their minions in Congress are trying to destroy the programs designed to keep people out of poverty, programs like SS, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, veterans benefits, etc. They don't seem to understand or care that increasing numbers of people with greatly reduced incomes have next to nothing in the way of money to spend on things other than the absolute necessities. That does nothing to improve the US economy.

Union membership needs to grow to combat the efforts of the corporations and business owners. The Right to Work laws need to be repealed in every state where they currently exist and fought tooth and nail wherever they're introduced.

19. Unions pretty much screwed themselves

If they were really Unions, then neither Michigan or Wisconsin would have had to go through this by themselves.. Unions are supposed to stick together, it is their only weapon but how many Union members are striking in Washington or California or New York or EVERY fucking state in America.. This isn't just Michigan's battle, it is a battle for the life or death of Unions all over the land and yet they do nothing.. Every fucking trucker in America that is Teamster should be parked... EVERY FUCKING ONE... Every plumber, every carpenter, every longshoreman, EVERY FUCKING UNION,...but that isn't going to happen and Republicans are going to kill off the Unions in every area or at least in enough to make them completely ineffective...You either believe in the strength of Unions or you just ignore what is happening and wait until it is your turn..First they came for Wisconsin and nobody helped because it wasn't their state, next they came for Michigan and no one helped because it wasn't their state..... There really is writing on the wall and somebody needs to start reading it Pronto...

14. It's easy to sit in an ivory tower and talk about disability benefits like they're nothing

18. I think Kristoff realizes he has to rehabilitate his reputation. Maybe that's why he went on MJ.

He has to clear up what exactly he is talking about.

My view is that these programs got started and were amplified at a time when we couldn't foresee the dire circumstances of the poor and even the middle class falling into poverty and people desperate for something, anything to help them survive. Kristoff needs to make that very clear. That programs to help the poor are not INHERENTLY bad. They can be distorted by dire circumstances that ordinary people find themselves in...

16. The rich are being short-sighted here.

If there are fewer poor people, there are fewer to clean up after, and otherwise serve, the rich. Not to mention the fact that there will be fewer poor people to fight one another like starving rats for the privilege of working in minimum wage shitjobs.

17. The "wrong" people are breeding. Of course, that doesn't take

into account the fact that mobility CAN be downward even for the "right" (middle/upper class) breeders, if the economy tanks, they lose their jobs, have a change in a family situation, become ill, or take a big pay cut. Safety nets will always be needed.